Legal challenge of Texas voter ID law kicks off in federal court

Opponents hope verdict in before election

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CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - A challenge of the Texas voter ID law kicked off in federal court Tuesday in Corpus Christi with opening statements and a first round of evidentiary testimony.

The trial comes about two months before the November midterm elections, and opponents of the voter photo ID law are hoping for a quick resolution so the higher standard of voter identification is thrown out before Election Day.

“We’ve made it no secret that this case is important and needs to be ruled on before the next election,” Chad Dunn, an attorney for the plaintiffs opposing the bill, told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times after the first day of hearings. “Evidence out there shows that hundreds of thousands in this state don’t have the photo ID they need.”

Dunn and the other plaintiffs cite a Harvard professor’s analysis that estimates about 787,000 registered voters in Texas are ineligible to vote because they lack necessary identification.

“There’s not enough time between now and the election for the state to fix the negative effects of this photo ID law,” Dunn said.

The law in question is SB14, which was approved by the Texas Legislature in 2011. The law requires voters to provide a state or federal form of photo identification before casting a ballot.

Reed Clay, representing Texas from the attorney general’s office, called the law a “common sense requirement that voters present photo ID to verify they are who they say they are.”

He added that a number of other everyday activities such as cashing a check or carrying a handgun require comparable photo identification.

The acceptable forms of ID are a driver’s license, Texas election identification certificate, a Texas ID card, a Texas concealed carry license, a U.S. military ID card, U.S. citizenship papers or a U.S. passport.

Still, opponents of the law say the policy is merely a poorly disguised effort at suppressing the minority vote in Texas.

The plaintiffs in the case say it affects African-Americans and Latinos at higher rates than Anglos, and that the law is nothing more than a solution to a “phantom problem.”

“(SB14) shares kinship with Texas’ discriminatory laws of the past,” Danielle Conley, one of plaintiffs’ attorneys, said during the opening statements.

Her remarks came after likening the photo ID requirement to poll taxes and literacy tests that have been deemed unconstitutional by courts in the past.

He said the bill aims to “stack up the seeds of democracy … in a barn so they don’t see the light of day,” and that “more than half-a-million Texans will lose the right to vote” if SB14 is not thrown out by the court.

That figure is based on a “no match list” produced by Stephen Ansolabehere, the Havard professor of government commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice to study the impacts of the legislation for this trial. The list was produced by cross-referencing Texas voter registration files with the databases associated with the acceptable forms of photo identification under SB14.

According to Ansolabehere’s findings, about 787,000 Texans are registered voters who, at the time the data was compiled, lacked the necessary ID to vote under the law, and therefore would be barred from voting by SB14.

Using a variety of data manipulation methods, Ansolabehere concluded the law disproportionately affects African-Americans and Hispanic voters.

“Minority voters are statistically less likely to possess the requisite ID, and they will be affected more than Anglo voters,” Ansolabehere said from the witness stand.

Specifically, African-American voters are twice as likely as Anglo voters to be impacted by the law and Hispanics are between 40 percent and 50 percent more likely to be affected, he told the court.

The legal team representing the State of Texas wasn’t quick to accept those findings as fact, however.

Attorney John Scott, representing the state, identified a convicted murderer on the no match list who is on death row, and pointed to six plaintiffs in this case whose races were incorrectly listed in the document.

Without providing source data, Scott repeatedly mentioned more than 2 million individuals in SDA’s database of about 13.5 million registered Texas voters may have had their race incorrectly labeled in the study.

Still, Ansolabehere remained confident in the study’s findings.

“Even with misclassification, there is still evidence of disparity,” Ansolabehere said. “If anything, (it would be) biasing (the data) downward away from finding a disparity.”

The trial will continue Wednesday.

Twitter: @ReporterMatt

Copyright 2015 Journal Media Group. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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